Los Angeles, California - More than 30,000 Kaiser Permanente nurses and health care professionals in California and Hawaii launched an unfair labor practices strike on Monday.
Around 31,000 Kaiser employees walked out at two dozen Kaiser Permanente hospitals and hundreds of clinics across the two states on Monday.
The nurses are calling on the company to put patients over profits by providing fair wages and safe staffing levels in health care facilities.
The United Nurses Associations of California/Union of Health Care Professionals – part of the Alliance of Health Care Unions – had been bargaining with Kaiser since May.
In December, company management left the bargaining table, prompting UNAC/UHCP to file an unfair labor practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board.
"We're not going on strike to make noise. We’re striking because Kaiser has committed serious unfair labor practices and because Kaiser refuses to bargain in good faith over staffing that protects patients, workload standards that stop moral injury, and the respect and dignity that Kaiser caregivers have been denied for far too long," UNAC/UHCP President Charmaine Morales said in a statement.
"Striking is the lawful power of working people, and we are prepared to use it on behalf of our profession and patients."
Kaiser generates massive profits as nurses struggle
Earlier this month, the UNAC/UHCP released a report which found that Kaiser generated $12.9 billion in net income in 2024 and that it has $66 billion in unrestricted reserves.
The report further found that Kaiser had invested in companies operating private prisons and ICE detention centers as well as in predatory lending and fossil fuel companies.
"When Kaiser says it doesn’t have resources to fix staffing, what we hear is that a nonprofit health care organization would rather protect an enormous financial cushion than protect patients and the people who care for them," Morales said.
Last October, more than 75,000 nurses and health care workers went on strike at Kaiser facilities in several states over stalled contract negotiations.